In the season there are numerous sportsmen, both English and French, and occasionally a very fair bag may be made; but game not being preserved systematically, the supply is variable, and accounts of sport naturally differ very widely. We can only say that it is poor work after our English covers, and that we know some residents at Avranches who prefer making excursions into Brittany for a week's shooting. Trout may be caught in tolerable abundance, and salmon of good weight are still to be found in the rivers, but they are diminishing fast, being, as we said, netted at night for the Paris market.[28]
It was in the shooting season of the year, when game had been unusually scarce for the sportsman and provokingly plentiful to behold in the market-place at Granville--when the last accounts we had of the success of a party (who had been out for a week) was that they had bagged 'only a few woodcocks, three partridges, and a hare or two'--that the following clever sketch appeared in the newspapers. It was great fun, especially amongst some of our French friends who were very fond of the phrase 'chasse magnifique,' and resented the story as a terrible libel.
An enthusiastic French marquis offered one of our countrymen, whom he met in Paris, a few days' shooting, in short, a 'chasse magnifique.' He accepted and went the next day; 'the journey was seven hours by railway, but to the true sportsman this was nothing.' The morning after his arrival he was attended by the marquis's keeper, who, in answer to X.'s enquiries, thus mapped out the day's sport:--
'Pour commencer, monsieur, nous chasserons dans les vignes de M. le Marquis, où à cette saison nous trouverons certainement des grives (thrushes).' 'Et après?' says X. 'Eh bien! après, nous passerons une petite heure sur la grande plaine, où, sans doute, nous trouverons une masse d'alouettes (larks). En suite je montrerai à monsieur certaines poules d'eau (moorhens) que je connais; fichtre! nous les attraperons. Il y a là-bas aussi, dans le marais, un petit lac où, l'année passée, j'ai vu un canard, mais un canard sauvage! Nous le chercherons; peut-être il y sera.'
'But have you no partridges?' 'Des perdreaux! mais oui! je le crois bien! (il demande si nous avons des perdreaux!) Il y en a, mais ils sont difficiles. Nous en avions _quatre_, mais, le mois passé, M. le Marquis en a tué un et sérieusement blessé un second. La pauvre bête n'est pas encore guérie. Cela ne nous laisse que deux. Nous les chasserons sans doute si monsieur le veut; _mais que feronsnous l'année prochaine_? Si monsieur veut bien achever cette pauvre bête blessée, ça peut s'arranger.'